Why do people drink and drive? A former drunk driver explains

Judy Wells lost her brother to a drunk driver when he was only 13 — it never stopped her from drunk driving herself. 

When she was an active alcoholic, the Toronto woman says she had this feeling of invincibility any time she drank that convinced her she could get behind the wheel. 

"The thought of what happened to my brother never stopped me from getting into a car," she said.

She even drove along the same road where a driver killed her brother in 1966.

He was picked up by two teen boys who "raced through town" and flipped the car into a lake. They survived "without a scratch," she said. "[My brother] died in the ambulance on the way to the Newmarket hospital."

Despite education and advocacy campaigns about drunk driving's many harms — emotional, financial and legal — Toronto police say incidents of impaired driving have stayed steady over the last four years. Last year, more than 2,600 people were charged with impaired driving.

In May, three children were killed after the car they were travelling in was hit by another vehicle that was allegedly speeding near Renforth Drive and Highway 401.

Ethan Lehouillier of Georgetown, Ont., was arrested at the scene. He is facing 12 charges, including three counts of impaired driving causing death.

Shortly after, Jennifer Neville-Lake, whose own three children were killed along with their grandfather by a drunk driver in a crash nearly a decade prior, shared her "grief and solidarity" in a post on social media.

Wells says she suffered from alcoholism for 22 years, a problem that ran in her family. She drank heavily in her 20s and 30s. She says she only managed to get help after a drunken blackout during a business trip forced her to re-examine her circumstances.

But when she drank and drove, Wells says she wasn't thinking about the consequences. 

"There's no understanding, there's no forethought of what the possibility is that you could kill someone," Wells told CBC Toronto.

There are a variety of reasons people drink and drive, says Dr. Christine Wickens, a senior scientist at the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH). 

"Sometimes individuals aren't well educated on the effects of alcohol on the body," she said. "Sometimes they make a poor decision in the moment. Sometimes they are suffering from a substance use disorder like alcoholism."